101 Free Templates for Adobe After Effects (and How to Make Your Own)

Templates for Adobe After Effects are an awesome way to automate your
workflow and to add creativity to your skillset. Check out more than 100 of the web's best After Effects templates below.

As After Effect's popularity has increased, so too has the usage of
templates to modify and enhance video projects. Because After Affects is
a
non-destructive video editor and animation suite, you can easily try out
all types of templates without damaging the original project files. This
makes it easier than ever
to experiment with applying effects and animation sequences in your
videos.

Premium After Effects Templates

If you’re looking for commercial quality results, and
you’re in a hurry to get a professional solution, then choose from one
of the hundred’s of affordable Adobe After Effects Templates available for purchase on VideoHive. Here are a few favourites:

Halloween Ghost: "This one is geared toward the halloween / scary themed videos.This
template is really easy to use and all our pretty much a have to do is
insert your video/image. If you're interested in buying the
full version of this project check it out on VideoHive.

DVD Case: "This project is simply a DVD case that you can add your own artwork to
that spins around in a loop so that you can show off your DVD product. If your
interested in buying the full version of this project check it out on VideoHive."

Distortion Kit: "A fully featured distortion effects kit that's simple to use and packed with customizable settings. Turn up the noise on your next video project!"

Type-O-Matic: "TYPE-O-MATIC is an After Effects CS5 type animation tool for designers and motiongraphers developed by Hamo Studio.
The Controller, Masked and Unfold. Three different ways for creating easy, quick and customizable type animation."

Spotlight: "Five smooth icon animations designed to drive the world to your social accounts!"

Messenger: "We've made it easier than ever to show chat and texting in your videos!
Messenger is a free After Effects template that includes five unique
visual styles. Customize the look to fit your project."

Countdown Clock: "Next time you need to rig a clock, save yourself some time with Countdown, a free After Effects template."

Grunge Film: This project is a simple one, but gives a really nice effect
for a old movie projector effect. This is only composed of two composites,
which is one to move the film up and down and a second for the camera
shake and dirt of the film look. Adjusting this is just a simple matter
of swapping out your own footage into the composite called 'Insert
Footage HERE.' Simple enough right?"

DVD Menu: "Here is a nice DVD menu style template for intro
piece/opening menu area. However you can adjust this to become much
more than what it is like a chapter list, or DVD extras. This is more
fitted for futuristic style videos."

Mug Shot: "This template is great for if your doing a prank video of someone going
to jail. All you have to do is add a photograph and insert the any name
on the text."

CD Case: "This project is great for all of you struggling music artist out that
that want to be seen and heard and give your product a professional
touch. In this project all that you have to do is take your CD cover
graphics and just insert them into this project and boom, your good to
go. If you're
interested in buying the full version of this project check it out on VideoHive."

VishiMorphic40: This "After Effects project that replicates the look and feel of the Anamorphic process.
If you drop your footage into the timeline you will have access to three
options that help you achieve the magical look without resorting to
additional adaptors or lenses."

Three Logo Reveals: "These logo reveals work best for contemporary businesses and clients who want a slick professional product."

16 Transitions: "Designed to help video editors create engaging and fun videos, these 16 free transitions for After Effects are a clean and fun way to breath life into a boring project."

Realistic Fire: "Got a burning desire to add a fire effect to your next After Effects project?"

Generic Title: "This is a very simple and easy generic video title that anyone can use
as an intro for their project. The project file is created in Adobe
After Effects CS6 and is built only with native plugins. There are no
external assets. The project is only 310kb in size."

Blood Splat Titles: "create spooky and horror titles for your haunted film. This template is compatible with various versions of After Effects."

Another 2D Logo Introduction: "This free AE template is a bit of the same genre as the previous one but
another style. It’s a trendy colorful 2D logo introduction."

2D Earth Animation: "a small ‘trendy 2D’ earth animation from a project i’m working on. You
can use it for different purposes, for example as background for your
titles or part of a longer 2D animation."

Trendy 2D Animation Pack: "This is a pack of more than 20 different 2D animations! All done in
After Effects with the built-in shapes. Very trendy these days, you find
these animations in many different presentations. They can be used for
logo animations, infographics or background decoration. Since these are
After Effects shapes, they are very easy to tweak to your likings. You
can change the color, the animations durations and/or combine them
together to create something really cool and unique."

Starter v1.0: "a free After Effects Template that you can download and use to create Logo Reveal Slide for your brand, business, YouTube channel, etc. The template is entirely based on Shape Layers and colors of the animation are expression driven. That means you can change the colors very easily from the effects panel instead of going deep into the Shape Layer properties."

Starter v2.0: "Though it sounds like an updated version of the previous logo reveal, but this new and Free After Effects template is completely different. Starter 2.0 is powered by cool animated shape layers and expression driven color controls."

3D Text: "If you want to save yourself some time and efforts, download this free After Effects Project file. In this project, I have pre-created all the layers and effects that together converts a 2D text layer into 3D."

Heatwave: "Heatwave is our new free After Effects Template that can be used to create intro titles for your project."

Impurity: "Impurity After Effects Template is easy to understand,
easy to modify and well organised. Impurity requires stock images and
video’s which are available in the template package. There is one single
Text Layer which you need to change to modify the text."

The Streak: "The Streak uses multiple layers of solid containing the advance
lightning effect. Project file is well organised and easy to
understand. You can modify the text by changing the text layer according
to your project title.
You can also change the alignment of streak layers to change the look of the titles according to your taste."

How to Make Your Own Adobe After Effects Templates

In this four-part video series Andre Navarre walks you
through the process and workflow of creating an organized After Effects template that
can easily be customized by anyone. You'll learn how to design a
template from scratch using placeholders, make buttons with custom
settings, and implement your own visual editor.